(in)justice

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Top Ten Videos of 2009: 6. Funny or Die, “A Gaythering Storm”

December 17, 2009 | Post a comment

In the early part of 2009, American TV airwaves were polluted by a particular commercial that became known as the “Gathering Storm” ad. Made by a group calling itself the National Organization for Marriage, it was a clumsy, mendacious message of anti-gay fear-mongering. I don’t care to put the original ad here on my own blog, so if you haven’t seen or don’t immediately recall it you can fill yourself in by clicking this link.

The ad could have been a milestone of unintentional comedy were it not for the fact that so many Americans actually buy its central falsehood that same-sex marriage could impose anything whatsoever onto heterosexual marriages and families. Needless to say, the ad’s overblown, portentous bigotry practically begged to be parodied. I made calls to a few filmmaker friends with a mind toward producing one myself, but to do it right ended up being logistically impossible.

Fortunately, the popular comedy site Funny or Die soon rolled out their version, which more than filled the comedic void. Entitled “A Gaythering Storm,” it comes in at number six on my list of the top ten videos of 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

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Iran: Real Winners Don’t Blame

June 18, 2009 | Post a comment

Day six of Iran’s post-election uprising, and all we can do is watch. Or at least, all we will — and indeed should do is watch.  Not until Tuesday, four days after the Ahmadinejad government released its incredible tally pronouncing its own reelection by a 63-34 margin, did President Obama comment on the situation. And very measured comments they were, with an emphasis on honoring the will of Iranian voters rather than condemning the ruling faction.

Even these mild pronouncements were immediately seized upon by the beleaguered Iranian incumbents, accusing the U.S. of fomenting the massive unrest they now face.
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I’m John McCain, and I Approved These Lies

September 12, 2008

play

As of right now, the McCain campaign is nothing more than a firehose of lies. Period.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and countless others from both parties have spoken highly of John McCain, praising his honor and dignity.  I’ll take it on faith that McCain may have once possessed those qualities… but not anymore.  There is not a shred of honor in how the McCain campaign is being conducted.  He may have handed off the reins to subordinates, but it’s his name on the door.  His staff and his campaign are his responsibility.

John McCain is a corrupt, unprincipled, ethically bankrupt old man.  His personal judgment is abominably bad.  And he is a liar.

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It’s Perfectly Simple

July 10, 2008 | 1 comment

UPDATE – March 9, 2009: OK, see, there was this site called criticsrant.com. Key word there is “was,” because the site appears to be kaput, at least for now (try the link below this if you want to double-check). Anyway, it had a feature where you could type in the your blog’s URL and it would assess its readability assign it a school-level classification, complete with a badge that you could embed displaying the result. C&B was declared to be Junior High School-level reading, hence my one-liner at the end of this post.

If you never got to see it, sorry about that. Believe me, it was wryly hilarious.

Blog Readability Test

That’s it – I am through with dumbing it down for you people. ;-)

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C&B Smackdown: Justice vs. Compassion

June 11, 2008 | 5 comments

So I was goofing off and taking silly quizzes on the web when suddenly I came across a question that wasn’t so silly. It went a little something like this:

If you had to make an important decision about something that would affect others, which of these factors would you consider most strongly?

  • Justice
  • Compassion
  • Practicality
  • Self-interest

I sat here for about 5 whole minutes mentally kicking this one around. I immediately eliminated Self-interest – it’s a perfectly worthwhile answer, but given that my judgment is going to carry repercussions for many others it automatically feels least important to me. In the broader scheme of things I’m not sure that this tendency is such a plus; it’s often been suggested to me that I am by nature too unselfish for my own good… but I digress.

justice vs. compassion fight posterAfter another minute or two I eliminated Practicality. A course of action, I reasoned, shouldn’t be considered more right because it’s the easiest or most practical way to go. Here again, I like my decision but readily admit it as evidence that I’m a lousy capitalist.

I finally settled on Compassion, mainly because I’m a big fan of it. If you’re surprised, hear me out.

Justice seems like the obvious answer. Everyone loves Justice, me included, but the problem is that no two people’s notions of Justice are quite the same. For only one example, If you’re deciding what to do with a confessed murderer, the victim’s family is most likely going to have a different idea of justice than the murderer’s mother would have. This, of course, is a single specific example, not necessarily correlative to the hypothetical decision I’d be making.
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